Impact of “blue space” as a working condition on the health and wellbeing of offshore windfarm workers

Project Description:

This project is closed to new applicants.

This PhD scholarship is offered by the EPSRC CDT in Offshore Wind Energy Sustainability and Resilience; a partnership between the Universities of Durham, Hull, Loughborough and Sheffield. The successful applicant will undertake six-months of training with the rest of the CDT cohort at the University of Hull before continuing their PhD research at Loughborough University.

The offshore wind industry has expanded rapidly and as a large influx of offshore workers is expected to meet the growth of the industry, companies now have an important task of maintaining health and safety at work in order to sustain well-being and retain the workforce until statutory pension.

Whilst blue spaces (e.g., coasts, rivers) can play a direct and indirect role in improving health and well-being through reducing stress, depression and anxiety as examples, working at sea can cause feelings of confinement and negatively impact workers’ activity levels and sedentary behaviour, leading to poor health outcomes.

This novel study will involve an assessment of offshore workers’ health behaviours (including activity, sitting, diet and sleep) to fully understand the impact of this working environment on these important health behaviours.

The student will work directly with offshore workers, as well as stakeholders such as human resources personnel, safety managers and occupational health staff, to design, test and pilot intervention content to support offshore workers to make pragmatic, beneficial changes to key health behaviours, within the confines of their working environment.

Methodology

Firstly, a systematic review will be conducted to identify the impact of blue spaces on offshore workers, to understand the positive and negative effects of being at sea, and the positive and negative effects of working conditions. From the review, knowledge gaps will be identified. Findings from the systematic review will be used to shape a study examining health behaviours (e.g. activity levels, sitting, sleep and diet) and physical and mental health markers to understand the interaction of work and blue spaces on health and wellbeing. This work will involve both quantitative and qualitative research methods. Objective data on weather conditions will be recorded.

The findings of this work will inform the content and design of co-creation workshops, involving offshore workers and key stakeholders, where appropriate intervention and/or workplace policies will be designed to support offshore workers to maximise the benefits of working in a blue space. If time permits, the intervention/proposed policy changes will be piloted in a small sample of offshore workers.

For informal enquiries about the research project, please contact Prof Stacy Clemes, S.A.Clemes@lboro.ac.uk.

You may also address queries about the CDT to auracdt@hull.ac.uk.

Watch our short video to hear from Aura CDT students, academics and industry partners:

References and further reading

Mette, J., Velasco Garrido, M., Harth, V., Preisser, A.M. and Mache, S., 2018. Healthy offshore workforce? A qualitative study on offshore wind employees’ occupational strain, health, and coping. BMC public health, 18(1), pp.1-14.

World Health Organisation. Green and blue spaces and mental health. Evidence and perspectives for action. 2021.

White, M.P.; Elliott, L.R.; Gascon, M.; Roberts, B.; Fleming, L.E. Blue space, health and well-being: A narrative overview and synthesis of potential benefits. Environ. Res. 2020, 191, 110169.

Earle, F., Huddlestone, J., Williams, T., Stock‐Williams, C., van der Mijle‐Meijer, H., de Vries, L., van Heemst, H., Hoogerwerf, E., Koomen, L., de Ridder, E.J. and Serraris, J.J., 2022. SPOWTT: Improving the safety and productivity of offshore wind technician transit. Wind Energy, 25(1), pp.34-51.